#31: Road to World-Class Marketing—Building Smart Cross-Channel Strategies

The bottom-up playbook: how SDRs + cross-channel strategies build real pipeline.

This is my last newsletter covering marketing topics.

Most of you read me for sharing insights on building agency businesses, or how we built Belkins to the leader in our industry. But to be honest, at the end of the day, I'm personally most proud of our marketing accomplishments rather than boasting about operational efficiency, HR genius, or technological superiority in building great agencies.

Although we've done some great things in all those aspects—if we hadn't, we wouldn't be called the best—personally I do think that marketing and brand creation has been our most daring and rewarding initiative thus far.

We've always been punching above our weight with no one to guide us or help in difficult situations. If we fuck up, well then we know who will pay the bill.

The Marketing Journey So Far

Over the last few months, I've covered lots of marketing fundamentals and things I ponder during my marketing hours:

• AI in B2B marketing

• How sales-owned organizations are transforming into marketing-led

• The importance of turning your company into an insights-generation machine

• Introduced omnichannel as the most effective modern playbook

I'll finish up today with the last newsletter on cross-channel strategies: how by combining several channels practically, you can achieve omnichannel effectiveness.

The Bottom-Up Revolution

Throughout my newsletters dedicated to marketing, I've referenced the bottom-up approach to building funnels as described in the image below ↓

In my professional opinion, most organizations with rudimentary/early marketing (either starting it or never seriously having done it before) would benefit from establishing early opportunities by means of direct outreach. This will help them to:

1. Refine ICP

2. Test personas

3. Build the sales function

4. Establish messaging-market fit

Meaning successfully establish the "conversion" stage of the funnel, then move up the funnel to:

• Engagement stage: Adding webinars, workshops, and live sessions

• Activation stage: With lead magnets, case studies, reports, and white papers

• Awareness stage: Blog articles, paid ads, etc.

Within this framework, you're adding channels to increase opportunities at the established conversion stage and proceed from there.

Everlasting Truths

1. You don't need to build a massive marketing strategy before making sure that through direct conversations buyers actually engage.

2. Webinars and online events serve as additional opportunities for prospects to engage with your brand before they're ready for actual sales conversations, thus doing them serves as a nurture initiative.

3. Through reports and white papers, you're establishing yourself as an expert, showcasing the scientific, well-thought-out approach to rendering your service to clients.

4. Lastly, you're well set up to reuse the unique insights from the previous step into blog articles, social media posts, paid ads, etc., to spread the word about your company.

This approach creates a flywheel effect and consists of the most important fundamentals of modern marketing:

• Knowing your buyers/ICP

• Being relevant to them through your messaging and offering

• Standing out by providing a unique perspective

• Adding your buyers into the universe of your brand by building multiple touchpoints

I've implemented this playbook dozens of times for Belkins' clients. It just clicks more with everyone in comparison to the older marketing top-to-bottom playbook.

Why Top-Down Doesn't Work Anymore

In top-to-bottom, marketing tries to establish messaging-ICP-market fit via classic marketing channels, like paid ads, content, social, etc.

That's why we're seeing so many brands:

• Spending huge amounts of money on ads

• Doing god-knows-what with their content strategy

• Creating BS blog posts that no one reads

• Publishing soulless social media posts

The cherry on top is the SDR teams that harass people non-stop with sales emails, and this all has been orchestrated by CMOs who spent years refining the playbook, which most of us don’t have.

The reality is:

• We don't have years, we have months

• We don't have budgets to test, we have to shoot the bullseye to survive

• We cannot do multiple things, we need to do a few things that work

The Half-Million Dollar Misalignment

Every time a new client comes to us, there's a 90% chance they'll check all the boxes below:

• "I need clients and I think direct outreach could work for us."

• "We do our content in-house, it's focused on SEO strategy" or "We stopped doing it because it didn't work."

• "We post regularly from our corporate LinkedIn page, but apart from that, we're not consistent with our personal reach."

• "We do ads on LinkedIn" or "We do Google which brings some results."

• "We don't do any reports or white papers, it's just too expensive."

• "We're doing partner webinars from time to time."

• "We attend major conferences at least 2-3 per year."

When I look at this list, I see only price tags of marketing dollars:

1. Direct outreach: $100k/year

2. Content: $50k/year

3. Social: $20k/year

4. Paid ads: $25k-$50k/year

5. Conferences: $250k/year

It's a half-million budget spent where all cogwheels are turning, but do they all turn in one direction?

The answer is, usually → they do not!

The CEO's Dilemma

There's no one to blame. I get it, we work with what we have. I'll be honest, I've kind of been there, all my years looking at this from the CEO chair:

Me: "I need new deals." [telling it to my CMO] "How do we get them?"

CMO: "Well, we can get them from search → we need content. Then we also can do paid ads. Of course, we do outbound, then listings like Clutch."

Me: "Yes, that sounds good, let's do all of the above!"

At the end of the day, it cost me big dollars to refine each of these channels. And now looking back, I would do everything differently.

I would not have my marketing manager drag the entire team into doing the top-to-bottom playbook.

No, I'd do a bottom-up approach!

The Bottom-Up Playbook in Action

The bottom-up playbook is built around multiple cross-channel initiatives deployed together with your marketing & sales teams and run by your SDRs/BDRs.

SDRs are responsible for making this playbook work, as they're the ones building touchpoints with your customers through:

• Direct outreach

• Getting intent signals via multiple data sources (website visits, email engagements, social engagements, opens/clicks, ad views, downloads, search intents, etc.)

Before SDRs moved to marketing, there was no one in marketing per se who could run this type of strategy end to end.

My $500K CMO Playbook

If you hired me as a CMO, I have a $500k yearly budget and a team of SDRs to execute. What would I do?

Step 1: Direct Outreach / Outbound

Channels: LinkedIn, Cold Email & Cold Calling or Intent Calling
Stage: Conversion

The 60-Day Foundation Sprint:

1. Prepare competency mapping with sub-industries breakdown, buyer personas, buying committee, pain points to use as foundation for my GTM and messaging → see Newsletter #30 Part 1

2. Build a list of all companies and people holding all titles within my buying committee, making sure all decision makers, influencers, and champions are included → see Newsletter #30 Part 1

3. Run a 60-day cadence starting from LinkedIn (connections, outreach with follow-ups, posts), then adding cold email and cold calls to validate that I'm engaging with prospects and the way I'm talking about their pain points and solutions is relevant for them.

My success signals—two metrics:

• Engagement rate: Out of 100 people who respond, I want to make sure at least 50% don't tell me "fu** off"

• Meetings booked: People actually want to discuss what I can offer, at least 0.5% of my target list

This is my first cycle. I don't expect to close deals (I might), but what I'm doing is validating my fundamental playbook:

• Positioning

• Messaging

• My SDRs' capabilities (bypassing spam filters, automating LinkedIn game, getting people on the phone, booking meetings, taking sales calls, and pitching my product)

Step 2: Outbound + Webinar

Channels: All from the previous step, plus webinars or live events
Stage: Engagement

Building on What Works:

1. Start with refining and enriching my lead list. I want to make sure people still hold their roles, exclude companies using AI validation to ensure that companies on my list are a good match for my offering (learnings from the previous step).

2. Design a webinar relevant to the industry, sub-industry, decision maker personas, or underserved personas in the buying committee like CFO. Goal here is to provide fresh insights that speak to their pain points. It's always a good idea to invite a successful client as a guest.

3. Redo my SDR messaging around the event, inviting people, talking about insights, etc.

4. My SDRs now cycle through my lead list again (important to use the same list as step 1), but now I'll invite people to join the session, providing some upfront value in terms of insights to communicate that we're not wasting their time.

The Multi-Channel Invitation Machine:

• All outreach channels are great vehicles to invite people

• Cycle through your list of existing connections from the previous step

• Add new ones

• Call people to invite them ("You'll be happy to see them joining")

• Land a few targeted cold emails

Surely you can add more channels to create more momentum for the webinar. I'll leave direct outreach as the main growth engine, as I'm building a scrappy playbook. (At the end of the day, you got me only $500K/year, right?)

Success Signals:

• People RSVPs

• Attending

• Engaging ("Sorry I'm busy, will there be a recording?" or "Can you send me a deck?")

The Re-Engagement Bonus: Some of the existing opportunities or previously engaged people who went radio silent can be re-engaged. This way your SDRs have a reason to reach out again, not just beg for the meeting.

Step 3: Outbound + Benchmark Report

Channels: All from previous step + freshly designed report/white paper
Stage: Activation

The Authority-Building Phase:

1. Again, refine the list. Make sure it's up to date, full, add new names, etc.

2. Design a unique report full of proprietary data. For Belkins, we do Outreach Benchmarks every year. Here's our 2025 edition → LINK. Goal: provide value upfront, don't ask anything in return (like sales demos), work around the insights you prepared, make sure people engage.

3. Redo your messaging around this report. Make sure your SDRs personalize it for each buyer persona. You don't want to email the CFO a report where there's nothing for CFOs. (Yeah, SDRs do this without thinking.)

The Third Cycle Advantage:

Again, SDRs will cycle through the lead list, now having:

• More connections on LinkedIn

• More phone numbers

• Getting past spam filters

• Massive opportunity to engage with all prospects in their existing pipeline who went ghost

Success Signals → Conversations

You want people to:

• Remember you

• Answer your messages

• Put likes

• Open that report

• Give feedback

• And at the end, join sales calls if you see lots of engagement, multiple times

The Dual Approach:

During this stage, your SDRs are fishing with their nets but still have their fishing poles ready to target individually those prospects with high intent signals → ready to get that meeting booked.

The Compound Effect:

Since you're cycling through leads for the 3rd time now, you'll also see:

• Some inbound requests

• People reaching out to you

• Overall sales meetings have higher buying intent

Step 4: Outbound + Blog Articles

Channels: All from the previous step + MoFu/BoFu articles
Stage: Awareness

The Content Multiplication Phase:

1. Refine your lead list once again. You really want to make sure all those learnings from the previous steps are included. Each cycle, you know your customers better.

2. Repackage everything into BoFu content. You've done an amazing webinar, you've got a report, you generated lots of conversations, so you have everything to repackage these learnings into BoFu content. Make sure these articles are SME-based, speak about pain points, and include your insights, cases, and unique perspective.

3. Redo your messaging to incorporate MoFu/BoFu articles. Make sure they're relevant to the buying committee. It's easy now to create multiple pieces per persona or maybe industry. Your CTA could be: "Do you experience the same challenges? How is this solution relevant for you?"

The Fourth Cycle Power:

Your SDRs can cycle through the lead list again. After 3 previous cycles, they have:

• More connections on LinkedIn

• More phone numbers

• Prospects who've seen your logo a few times

• Higher probability of engagement

Success Signals:

• Views—people actually reading what you wrote

• New conversations with folks who haven't engaged before

• Keeping that engagement level above 50% (more people answered back than "unsubscribe")

Why Articles Come Last (It's Not Backwards)

This might sound counterintuitive: Why the hell are articles coming after a webinar, after a whitepaper?

Remember, you're building this from bottom-up. Your objective is to both:

• Nurture prospects who engaged before but didn't convert into a meeting

• Provide folks who haven't engaged with your playbook an opportunity to do so

Meanwhile, you're efficient with your resources. You're intentional with each initiative.

Step 5: Full-Funnel Execution

Channels: Outbound + Webinar + Report + Blog articles + Paid Ads
Stage: Awareness, Activation, Engagement, Conversion

Now We Scale:

If I were you, I'd add paid ads now to:

• Boost posts on LinkedIn with MoFu/BoFu articles

• LinkedIn demand gen ads for the report

• Google retargeting ads for traffic

• Search ads too

This will provide lots of new leads.

Additional Power Moves:

• Personalized landing pages or website pages per role/industry (great way to demonstrate offering)

• Conferences (great way to connect with key clients)

• Outbound now more proactive with CTA: demo meetings, workshops are a must

• Double down on calling and targeted outreach on LinkedIn

The Non-Linear Reality:

The full-funnel here becomes non-linear. You don't go bottom-up to top-to-bottom. You now look at prospect cohorts:

• Who are you connected to on LinkedIn?

• Who hasn't engaged?

• Who has engaged the most?

• Which channel drove more engagement?

• Where do we double down?

While this step represents a chaotic buyer journey (now one of the most well-accepted beliefs in marketing), you still want to be consistent with new benchmark reports, case studies, MoFu-BoFu content, updating ads, etc. This keeps your approach fresh and full of additional assets to share.

Your SDRs' New Reality:

• Focus on intent signals

• Continue building LinkedIn connections

• Double down on calling

• Be available to invite people for new webinars

• Book meetings for conferences

• Follow up on inbound leads

• Work through referrals

Success Signals: Opportunities coming from all over. They have high buying intent. All channels work. AEs are happy with quality and are turning these meetings into deals.

The Connected Universe

In my playbook, all channels are connected to each other. They:

• Use similar messaging

• Share knowledge of buyers

• Build upon each other

• Support each other

Creating the universe of your brand: streamlined, effective.

You always know what the next step is. Your team is aligned, informed, engaged, and of course effective.

The term "cross-channel" means you're smart in deploying your marketing with intention → increase opportunities. Each brings you closer to your customers, provides them with your unique perspective & builds you into a thought leader.

Just last week, I saw a post from Alyona from Fuel titled "We've spent $300K on our marketing and wasted 80% of it."

Well, as I said all along, that's common when you first give a serious try at building out a marketing playbook. But by doing it the old way, it will lead to disappointment, wasted marketing, lost hopes, and frustrated CEOs.

The new way → bottom-up!